Building data exchange

The Digital Catapult centre was established to help businesses unlock new value from sharing proprietary data. The Building Data Exchange is intended to stimulate innovation and help build more efficient properties by making data available on the performance of buildings gathered over the last 6 years by Innovate UK’s £8 million Buildings Performance Evaluation programme.

The full data set was first made available for a 'hackathon' on 5-7 February and was then made available to the public as part of a three-year Catapult programme to encourage interaction between the construction industry and digital innovators.

The reports suggest more needs to be done to ensure properties meet their targets on energy use and efficiency.

Simon Hart, Innovate UK's programme leader for the built environment, said: “Homes and offices are not performing as they should do. They are consuming up to 10 times the energy they should, and there are a multitude of factors behind that. The programme has amassed so much data that it’s difficult for constructors to process it. There is an opportunity now for digital businesses to create smart home or property technology that could be adopted by the construction industry and help it to tackle these issues.”